As the global financial sector braces for the largest transfer of wealth in human history, a new technological framework is emerging to address the systemic inefficiencies of estate settlement. Prismm, a financial technology startup focused on digitizing the transition of assets, took the stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco to showcase its suite of tools designed to modernize how banks handle the death of an account holder. By integrating beneficiary management and estate planning directly into the core infrastructure of financial institutions, Prismm aims to eliminate the friction that typically leads to "estate attrition"—the phenomenon where heirs move inherited funds out of a deceased relative’s bank due to a lack of established relationships or a cumbersome transfer process.

Founded in 2020 by sisters Martha Underwood and Shella Sylla, Prismm enters a market where the "Great Wealth Transfer" is no longer a distant projection but a current reality. Estimates from research firms like Cerulli Associates suggest that over $84 trillion will be passed down from older generations to Gen X and Millennials through 2045. Despite the magnitude of these assets, the mechanisms for moving them remain largely manual, paper-based, and prone to legal delays. Prismm’s mission is to transform this transition from a reactive, crisis-driven event into a proactive, seamless digital workflow.

The Evolution of Prismm: From Personal Crisis to Infrastructure Solution

The impetus for Prismm was rooted in a personal emergency that exposed the vulnerabilities of traditional financial management. In 2017, following the devastation of Hurricane Irma in Miami, the founders’ father was hospitalized after a fall while assisting a neighbor with roof repairs. In the immediate aftermath, the family realized that their mother, who had historically relied on her husband to manage the household’s financial logistics and documentation, was unable to locate critical account information. Underwood and Sylla, despite their combined decades of experience in the banking and finance sectors, found themselves equally in the dark.

While their father eventually recovered, the experience highlighted a glaring gap in the "wealth-tech" ecosystem: while thousands of platforms existed to help families grow and track their wealth, almost none were built to facilitate its transition during a time of incapacity or death. This realization matured in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, Underwood was serving as an executive at a major financial institution. She observed a surge in families entering bank branches in states of distress, struggling to navigate the bureaucratic maze required to access the accounts of deceased loved ones.

"That’s when it hit us that this is an infrastructure problem," Underwood stated during her presentation at TechCrunch Disrupt. "We’ve created all of these platforms for wealth growth and tracking, but almost nothing for transition. It’s still very much all manual. We realized we could digitize this process and solve it for the millions of other families facing the same issues."

Strategic Product Architecture: Designate, Anchor, and Continuity

Prismm’s platform is built on the premise that estate planning should not be a static document stored in a safe-deposit box, but a dynamic component of a digital banking profile. The company has developed three core products to facilitate this: Prismm Designate, Prismm Anchor, and the upcoming Prismm Continuity.

Prismm Designate serves as the entry point, providing banks with a digital interface that allows customers to easily update and manage their beneficiaries. In the current banking environment, updating a beneficiary often requires physical forms or navigating obscure sub-menus in a banking app. Designate streamlines this, ensuring that the bank has up-to-date, legally binding information on file long before it is needed.

The second tier, Prismm Anchor, acts as a secure, institution-backed vault. Unlike consumer-facing digital legacy apps, Anchor is integrated into the bank’s own ecosystem. It allows account holders to store not only account details but also property deeds, insurance policies, and other vital documents. Crucially, it allows for "controlled access," where designated heirs can be granted visibility into specific assets ahead of time. This transparency reduces the "treasure hunt" phase that often follows a death, where executors spend months trying to identify all the decedent’s holdings.

The final piece of the ecosystem, Prismm Continuity, is currently in development. This module is designed to guide both bank staff and bereaved families through the actual step-by-step transfer of assets. By providing a digital roadmap, the tool aims to keep the settlement process within the original institution, preventing the "leakage" of funds to competitors.

Addressing the Economic Impact of Estate Attrition

For financial institutions, the value proposition of Prismm extends beyond customer service; it is a matter of balance sheet preservation. Industry data indicates that banks lose a staggering percentage of deposits when a primary account holder passes away. Some studies suggest that upwards of 80% to 90% of heirs move inherited assets to a different institution where they already have an established relationship.

This "estate attrition" represents a multibillion-dollar drain on traditional banks annually. The problem is compounded by the fact that many banks have no formal system for identifying or engaging with the next generation of customers until the moment of death. By the time a death certificate is presented at a branch, the relationship is often already lost.

Prismm’s infrastructure allows banks to initiate those relationships years in advance. When an account holder designates a beneficiary through the Prismm-powered bank portal, the bank gains a "warm lead" and a point of contact. "We will be the infrastructure that financial institutions use to move money to the next generation," Underwood explained. "We understand that you need to be proactive and build relationships with the next generation of consumers on the front end, rather than just executing on the back end."

Solving the "Caregiver Burden" Through B2B Integration

A key differentiator for Prismm is its business model. While several startups have attempted to sell estate-planning tools directly to consumers (B2C), these often fail because they require users to adopt yet another app and manually input data. Prismm instead utilizes a B2B2C (Business-to-Business-to-Consumer) model, integrating directly into bank cores.

This approach recognizes the demographic reality of who typically handles estate affairs. Research consistently shows that women are more likely to take on the role of caregiver and executor for aging parents. For a woman managing her own career, children, and household, the added burden of managing a parent’s disparate financial documents can be overwhelming.

"What’s on the market is consumer-based," Underwood noted. "When you’re asking the consumer to do something with everything else on their list, that’s going to be the last thing they do. As caregivers, asking us to manage documents for our parents while we take care of everyone else becomes too much. This needs to be built as infrastructure with as little friction as possible."

By embedding the service within the bank’s existing interface, Prismm ensures that the data is already where the money is. This reduces the cognitive load on the user and increases the likelihood that the estate information will remain accurate and accessible.

Technical Implications and the Future of Fintech Infrastructure

The integration of Prismm into "bank cores"—the central processing units that banks use to manage transactions and account data—is a significant technical undertaking. Historically, these cores (often managed by giants like Fiserv, Jack Henry, or FIS) have been closed systems, making it difficult for third-party startups to innovate. However, the rise of "Open Banking" and API-driven finance has created a window for companies like Prismm to plug in their specialized workflows.

Financial analysts suggest that as banks face increasing competition from neo-banks and digital-first investment platforms, the ability to provide "lifestyle" or "life-stage" services like digital estate transition will be a key differentiator. If Prismm can successfully scale its integration, it could become the industry standard for what is currently a fragmented and painful process.

Conclusion and Outlook for Startup Battlefield

Prismm’s appearance at the Startup Battlefield competition comes at a pivotal moment for the company. As they compete for the $100,000 equity-free grand prize, the founders are looking to expand their footprint among mid-sized and regional banks, which are often the most vulnerable to estate attrition.

The TechCrunch Disrupt judges, a panel consisting of veteran venture capitalists and industry experts, will evaluate Prismm not just on its social utility, but on its ability to prove a return on investment for the banking sector. With the winner to be announced on Thursday, October 15, the industry is watching closely to see if this "infrastructure for the inevitable" will gain the momentum needed to modernize the final frontier of personal finance.

In a world where almost every other aspect of banking has been digitized—from mobile deposits to instant peer-to-peer payments—the manual nature of inheritance has long been an anomaly. Prismm’s pitch is that by solving the infrastructure problem of death, they are ultimately helping banks and families preserve the legacy of life. Regardless of the competition’s outcome, the shift toward digitized wealth transition appears to be an unavoidable evolution in the global financial landscape.